OFF: smoking etc.

[M Holmes]

Robert C. Mayo writes:

> does smoking pot carry the same health risks as smoking cigarettes?
> cancer/lung-heart disease/emphesema/etc etc...? let's forget the
> supposed 'positives' for the moment--surely inhaling the smoke of
> anything burning has it's dangers...?

Odds are it's not good for folks to inhale hot smoke of anything.
However, when it's been looked into, and it has a few times, the
evidence of long term health effects comparable with tobacco just isn't
there. The caveat would have to be that where it's smoked with tobacco,
then the tobacco would be causing its usual damage. However, most pot
users don't smoke nearly as much pot as a typical tobacco smoker would
of tobacco.

I have seen references to bronchitis being more likely amongst heavy pot
smokers. There was also evidence from, I think, WHO studies, that
moderate to heavy pot smokers showed a cognitive deficit in tests of
about 3% compared to control groups (this was in memory tests etc...),
however the effect disappeared on cessation of pot smoking. What it
seemed to amount to was that folks who smoked at least once per day were
never quite sober and tended to forget things.

Hope this helps...

FoFP